Plagiarism and Spinning

Plagiarism is probably the more familiar word: It’s the act of copying someone else’s work and claiming it as your own, which, according to Merriam-Webster, can be considered literary theft. 

While it’s not illegal, plagiarism can result in legal action, which is why it’s against our Terms of Service.

What does plagiarism look like?

For some, plagiarism means copying something word for word:

Original author: "My cat is orange and white."
Plagiarism: "My cat is orange and white."

It can also look slightly different: 

Original author: "My cat is orange and white."
Plagiarism: "My cat is white and orange."

While the order of the words has changed, the content itself is still pretty identical, so this still counts as plagiarism.

Let's get into something a bit more complicated.

Original author: My cat is orange and white. I named him Tim and bought him a blue collar. Tim likes to play with a stuffed mouse.
Plagiarism: "My cat is white and orange. His name is Tim, and he wears a blue collar. He enjoys playing with a stuffed mouse I got him.

You can see that there are now more substantial changes between the two texts; some words are rearranged, some phrasing is changed, and some things are added. These are all steps in the right direction to avoid plagiarism; however, this rewrite is still too similar to be considered original work.

What is spinning?

Spinning is a type of plagiarism that can be a bit more involved. In spun articles, a lot of the words will simply be switched with similar words, so things will sound different, but they're really not.

Nowadays, there are online tools people use to spin content for them. This can still be detected by our editors and plagiarism checker, so we really don't suggest even trying.

What does spinning look like?

Spinning often looks like someone used a thesaurus to rewrite the original content:

Original author: "My cat is orange and white. I named him Tim and bought him a blue collar. Tim likes to play with a stuffed mouse."
Spun content: "My feline is apricot and white. I entitled him Tim and purchased him and blue collar. Tim likes to play with a filled vermin."

As you can see, this is still pretty obvious in its unoriginality...it also doesn't sound great.

You'll often need to write your orders based off of other resources: Clients ask for rewrites or summaries, or they want you to write using only one source. That might make it seem like some form of plagiarism/spinning is your only option, but there are ways to still be original:

•  Cite your sources! You're always free to use direct quotes from your sources, but you should always make sure to give proper credit and limit how many you use.

• Summarize the source. Here's a tip to try: Read through your source material until you feel comfortable with the subject. Close your source, and start writing as if you were explaining the subject to a friend. You might find that you've remembered enough to get the main points across in your own words. You can always go back and fill in what you need to, but now it should be easier to keep things original.

• Do your research across different sources. If you're not limited to one source, try to find information on your subject in different places. When you paraphrase from multiple sources, you're putting ideas together in a unique way. Just remember that you should still avoid copying anything word for word in this case.

Special Circumstances

If your order gets sent back to you for plagiarism but it was unavoidable, please reach out to us. We understand that sometimes clients ask for direct quotes or you have to write about something that's hard to rephrase. If they want three different articles about the same thing, it might be hard to rework every part of those articles. 

When that happens, send us an email at authors@textbroker.com. We'll take a look at the order to see what's going on and pass it through if we need to.